Saturday, April 29, 2006

Mini-rant

This post absolutely disgusts me. The entitlement attitude overtaking young people today is one of the great embarrasments of our country. Where is it said that our parents owe us a damn thing more than the necessities for the first 18 years of our lives?

I know my parents made some really poor financial decisions. My mother in particular is quite irresponsible with money to the point where I have to give her a lecture before I'll even consider loaning her any. That may make me seem like a heartless and cheap bastard. But in all honesty, I'm hoping she'll learn about money the way I did - by having none. But I've also made sure she knows that once she's ready to take responsibility and try to fix her mistakes, I'll be here to help.

I am truly not sure what angers me the most about that post, though. The entitlement is bad, but how can she presume to cast stones at her parents for poor financial decisions while she's racked up 17k in credit card debt? Or how about the 136k she spent on school - wtf is her degree in?! And to think I'm actually embarrassed that I graduated with $35k in loan debt!

And 25k on a marriage? Wow. They want to commit close to 33% of their NET combined income to a single day in their lives? Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment. Surely that 25k is better spent on the other thousands of days that make up that timespan rather than a single day. Some people truly have lost sight of what's important in life when they think those types of expenses financed with credit are a "must".